Seattle may vote on monorail again

SEATTLE – Officials will consider going to city voters for a fifth time to salvage a beleaguered plan for a new monorail system, even though residents are likely tired of casting ballots on the subject, the project’s vice chairwoman said Tuesday.

The monorail’s board also will look at cost-cutting measures, including scaling back parts of the 14-mile first phase, as it tries to determine the future of the transit system, vice chairwoman Kristina Hill said. But whatever it decides, the board will wait to hear from the public before moving ahead, Hill told a news conference at the project’s headquarters.

“We won’t act until we have a plan that we think the city of Seattle will understand and appreciate,” she said.

Monorail backers were studying their next steps a day after the project’s board chairman and executive director resigned amid heavy criticism of a rejected financing package.

The board planned three nights of public meetings beginning Tuesday to listen to public opinion and reconnect with supporters, Hill said.

Monorail watchdog group OnTrack said the leadership shake-up is the latest sign that the Seattle Monorail Project is incapable of completing the system.

“They have been drunk in the wheelhouse. They do not need another train to wreck,” OnTrack’s Henry Aronson said. “They have ruined the dream of the believers and they have verified the concerns of the skeptics.”

The elevated line linking four areas of the city has been expected to cost about $2.1 billion, but officials have struggled with a 30 percent shortfall from a car license tax and a 20 percent increase in costs.

To supplement the taxes, monorail officials proposed a combination of 40-year bonds and high-interest “junk bonds.” But that plan boosted the total cost including interest to $11.4 billion and was rejected by the board after resounding criticism.

Monorail board Chairman Tom Weeks and Director Joel Horn resigned Monday, saying outcry over the financing package had obscured the importance of an agreement to build the system.

Seattle voters have backed the monorail four times in less than a decade. In a vote last year, they shot down an initiative to block construction of the 14-mile line, which was approved by a thin majority two years earlier.

Peter Sherwin, a co-chairman of the past two pro-monorail campaigns, said voters are tired of weighing in about the monorail, but are not ready to kill the project.

“It’s not the technology that’s being questioned. It’s the management,” Sherwin said.

OnTrack policy analyst Krista Camenzind said the project should instead be turned over to a regional agency with experience in large-scale financing and transit planning, such as bus and light-rail operator Sound Transit.

Hill acknowledged that the large price tag was a shock to city residents, but said the board could have done a better job of explaining why the cost seemed to balloon so rapidly.

“I think they saw the sticker shock and didn’t have time to take in what they were getting,” Hill said.

Hill said she fears voter fatigue about the monorail, but believes Seattleites still support it.

“I hear people saying they don’t want to be asked to vote again. I don’t hear from people saying, ‘Give it up,’ ” Hill said.